Germany pushes for EU ban on embryo cloning Reacting to the UK's decision to legalise the cloning of human embryos for medical research, German doctors and politicians have called for a EU-wide ban on the practice. Although cloning is already illegal in Germany, medical associations are calling on the German government... Reacting to the UK's decision to legalise the cloning of human embryos for medical research, German doctors and politicians have called for a EU-wide ban on the practice. Although cloning is already illegal in Germany, medical associations are calling on the German government to take a strong stance on the issue and advocate an international ban. 'We can't allow embryos to be harvested like raw materials,' said the president of the German Medical Association, Jürg-Dietrich Hoppe, at a press conference, as he called for all forms of embryo cloning to be made illegal. 'The indivisibility of human rights are being eroded under the blanket of research freedom,' added Frank Ulrich Montgomery, chairman of the Marburger Bund, the largest association of doctors in Germany. Dr Montgomery also called for a European law to protect embryos. Among politicians the reaction has been similar, with Wolfgang Wodarg of the ruling Social Democratic Party (SDP), and chairman of a bioethics panel in the German parliament, calling the UK decision a 'catastrophe'. The Green Party, the coalition partner of the SDP, agreed on the need for a total human cloning ban. 'It's up to the German politicians to work towards holding together the nations that have spoken out against cloning,' said spokesperson Christa Nickels and chairwoman of the Bundestag's human rights committee in an interview with public radio broadcaster Deutschlandfunk. The opposition, the Christian Democratic Union (CDU) and its Bavarian sister party, the Christian Social Union (CSU), both criticised the UK's move as 'unacceptable'. 'It's an extremely alarming and disastrous development for Europe,' said Maria Böhmer, deputy chair of the CDU's parliamentary group. The only German political party to have given its backing to the UK decision is the neo-liberal Free Democrat Party (FDP), which called the move to allow therapeutic cloning a 'logical step'. 'It would be irresponsible to promote 'patient tourism', which would result if one country developed therapies unavailable in others, just so Germany can stay in its own ivory castle,' Ulrike Flach, an FDP member and chairwoman of the Bundestag's research committee told the German Deutsche Welle news service. 'German politicians are finally going to have to start dealing with therapeutic genetic questions,' she added. Countries Germany
